A little bit of history

[fishingpox]

pretty neat........


http://www.alternatewars.com/Bomb_Lo...Bomb_Guide.htm

[Tracker123]

That's pretty cool, thanks.

[Lowellhturner]

The questioning of the `morality` of dropping these 2 weapons upon Imperial Japan to convince the Emperor Hirohito to finally flat out command his military to surrender has been a debate from the moment they were used, more so since the early 1960s. What many "historians" so easily `forget" is the projected Allied losses to invade JUST the southern most Japanese main island was planned to be 6X the size of the Normandy invasion force, a total of 16 US reinforced combat divisions landing in the 1st 24 hrs; 210,000 men and 23,000 vehicles supported by 9,000 ships and various craft along with 14,500+ aircraft. Opposing them were supposedly 500,000 Imperial Army troops by most Allied estimates.... In REALITY, almost 1.1 MILLION Imperial troops were carefully hidden, extensively dug in and prepared to literally fight to the death. In addition, another almost 4 million civilians were given very basic training in ambush tactics using crude but razor sharp bamboo spears, the thought being that being forced to kill 4 million civilians would severely deplete the ammunition stocks of the Allied invaders and hopefully saving many Imperial troops initially, sparing them from immediate death to continue resisting. It was further hoped that if only 1 in 100 of these civilian managed to kill a single American each, that their sheer numbers would soon have a telling effect on both Allied morale and combat readiness. In addition, up to July 31st 1945, approx. 2500 kamikaze aircraft attacks had occurred; the Imperial military was thought to have a further 1,500 left. Again, the Allies completely underestimated the potential threat- in fact over 5,000 more were hidden, close to the coastal roads they would use as their runways. 1,500 Okha rocket powered flying bomb kamikazes that used a dolly to launch from also awaited the naval ships both landing troops and vehicles as well as performing naval gunfire shore bombardment missions. Cheap, easy to build, not requiring any precious gasoline and able to reach 600 mph in less than 10 seconds after launch these craft would would fly upwards to approx. 2000 ft, select a target and then dive at 650 mph, all but impossible to intercept or destroy with anti aircraft fire. With a success rate of "only" 14% upto that point, they with the other Kamikaze aircraft were potentially capable of sinking or absolutely mangling over 200 Allied ships in 1 constant on going 24 hr air assault. The ships being close to land would make them relatively easy to find targets. All in all knowing now the actual forces in place and even significantly handicapping the Imperial forces as well as completely dismissing the 4 million bamboo spear wielding civilians, the slaughter facing an Allied invasion force would have made even the Hell of Stalingrad pale into insignifigence...of the 75,000+ strong 1st assault wave, it was expected that within that 1st 24 hrs 85% would be KIA, with 60 % KIA for the 2cnd wave and finally 40% in the 3rd. Imperial Japan would not be completely overwhelmed until fall 1947...THAT level of flat out KIA casualties would undoubtedly have forced the Allies to resort to even more EXTREME results...by comparision, less than 150,000 Japanese died as a result of BOTH atomic bombs...simple math says it was the "wiser" choice...

[DRPEPPER]

Two good history lessons. Thanks Pox and LT.

[Lowellhturner]

Did forget to mention also the then Soviet Union was going to invade the Northern Islands; a divided country similar to Korea was a very real possibility...

[usafret99]

Great viewing/reading

[Cane Pole]

Did forget to mention also the then Soviet Union was going to invade the Northern Islands; a divided country similar to Korea was a very real possibility...

we shoulda killed all the russians at ww2 end. We had a good kill ratio going.

[BoarBuster]

Our biggest mistake is that once we have whipped someone we spend amounts of money that could go a long way here to rebuild their country. I figure if they didn't want their contry tore up then they should not have played ruff.

[Lowellhturner]

Perhaps toppling the Soviet Union economically as was eventually done might have been a better solution. And as far as punishing Germany and Japan, we tried punishing Germany after WW1, it only lead to further resentment didn`t help when the Great Depression came and left a fertile ground for the rise of the Nazis. If we had simply abandoned Japan and Germany the Soviets would have quickly seized both countries changing the balance of power even further after WW2...besides the vast majority of the Marshall Plan assisted France, Britain, Norway, Holland, Greece, Italy and other places repair their economies and recover 6X faster than the countries unfortunate enough to fall behind the Iron Curtain. Even to this day almost EVERY European country REMEMBERS this; it is exactly WHY the Ukraine today does NOT want `closer ties` with the Russian Federation, especially with so many ethic Russians waving Soviet flags...

[DRPEPPER]

Punishment is a mistake. Once we whip their hineys, we should leave them alone until they need it again. DP